Fraudster convicted: Bot army 'listened' to AI songs billions of times
In the USA, a person has been convicted for the first time for AI fraud on streaming platforms. The man flooded Spotify and similar services with hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs, for which he collected royalties using fake accounts.
54-year-old Michael Smith from the US state of North Carolina has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for AI fraud on music streaming services. He must repay the approximately eight million US dollars that he illegally generated according to the verdict. In addition, there is a two-year probationary period following his imprisonment. According to the New York Department of Justice, this is the first time someone in the US has been convicted of music streaming fraud with the help of AI.
Bot army generated billions of streams
Smith's fraud lasted from 2017 to 2024. He created vast amounts of fake accounts on various platforms. These bot accounts automatically played his own songs countless times, which earned him millions. Using a VPN, he created the impression that the accounts originated from different regions of the world. At times, over 10,000 such bots were active simultaneously.
To avoid detection, the man had to distribute the streams generated by the bots across many different songs. This is where AI tools came into play: they enabled Smith to produce the required quantity of songs. Initially, the creation process seemed relatively laborious, but Smith soon expanded his catalog from a few thousand to several hundred thousand musical tracks. This allowed the fraudster to collect royalties from billions of streams. At times, the streams of his catalog exceeded those of Taylor Swift by a multiple.
Credit card fraud included
Without AI tools, the fraud would not have worked. In an email, Smith wrote that he needed "a ton of songs, and fast" to bypass the platforms' anti-fraud mechanisms. Spotify identified the man as a fraudster as early as 2019 and removed his songs. However, Smith was active on a wide variety of platforms and simply continued.
Furthermore, Smith was guilty of credit card fraud. He paid for the subscriptions for the fake accounts using stolen credit card data. He combined several fake accounts into a family subscription to increase his profit.
Real musicians harmed
The court explicitly stated that through the fraud, Smith had "stolen millions in royalties" from real artists. It is not clear from the verdict who will receive how much of the eight million dollars back. It is also unclear whether Smith can even repay the amount.
My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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